What many once held dear are now meaningless anachronisms

HAVE you noticed how, year after year, the Twelfth of July diminishes in importance and news value? I'm not saying it doesn't matter any more of course it does.

But even the Garvaghy Road is becoming something of a damp squib in terms of confrontation, and the vast majority of the 60,000 or so Orangemen who marched this year were involved in no unpleasantness at all. Most people just went about their business.

And that means most Orangemen too, by the way. A few short years ago it was a quarter of a million Orangemen who marched on the "Twalfth". Now, it reminds me of the last chorus of the Eric Bogle song "And the band plays Waltzing Matilda, And the old men answer to the call; But year after year their numbers get fewer Some day no one will march there at all."